Report have come in this morning via Eurogamer that 14 staff have been let go at Elite Dangerous developer Frontier Developments.

Frontier managing director David Walsh confirmed the layoffs this morning and explained that the layoffs were due to “the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects” and added that the projects “remain healthy”.

The affected staff were informed at the end of the day last Friday and positions lost are from art, animation and audio departments.

Losing your job just before Christmas is tough and Walsh added that it was “better that the affected people knew ASAP so they can plan any further expenditure over the Christmas period accordingly and focus on their search for new roles as soon as possible”.

Frontier are still hoping to reach their Kickstarter goal of £1,250,000 for Elite Dangerous with 18 days to go which could be a challenge having raised £781,537 as the time of writing.

Over the weekend, Frontier also announced on their Kickstarter page that anyone who has pledged at the £90 tier or higher will receive any Elite: Dangerous expansions for free.